Teaching Mrs. Ryan

This term has been a wild one due to massive amounts of work, and massive amounts of personal health issues!  I missed my first psychology course of the term due to my daughter being in the hospital and almost missed the second day due to me needing to be in the hospital.  And what I have learned does boggle the mind. I have taken several psychology courses while I've attended schools in various areas.  I loved what the psychological courses discussed and lets face it, who doesn't want to learn to psychoanalyze oneself and others!  Educational psychology is a field that you have to look at from so many different angles.  I've always known that you can not pinpoint one's development, moral growth, actions, or anything of that nature on one theory or one person book of why.  No one person can successfully categorize human beings and be correct  Instead I've learned and am currently learning that these theories have to be combined and considered based upon each indiv

I hate to call what we are doing a semester since it is only a month long, but WOW the workload is a semester's worth.  This month I am taking an educational psychology course along with an elementary literacy course that focuses on assessments as well as teaching.  Both are very interesting so I can say at least while I'm being overwhelmed with a lot of work, it isn't boring work!  The biggest difference I'm seeing with this month's workload versus last month's work load is the amount of papers I have to write.  There are an ENORMOUS amount of papers.  One of my paper's that I must write this first week focuses on Piaget;s theories of cognitive development.  I've found a little YouTube video that discusses what they are so you can get an idea of what I'm learning about at this stage in the program. I missed the first psychology in class lecture due to my daughter having to go to the hospital, and now I am feeling like I'm flying blind on my

This week is the last week of our Summer I courses.  Two full size courses crammed into 1 month has me exhausted.  And then, I remember I still have 2 more months like this to go!  I CAN do this.  This week we focused mostly on our final projects which are presentations for both classes.  Tonight is the last presentation for the week, but the work is not done.  We still have take home finals that are due prior to midnight on Friday.  I started yesterday, but have a long way to go with that. Next month is considered Summer II and before I get geared up for new learning, I wanted to take some time to reflect about what I've learned in this past month.  I really feel like I've learned a lot about what the teachers do inside the classroom.  This didn't come from instruction as much as it came from getting to know those that are in the program with me.  These teachers teach in various types of schools to various age groups, and they all have magnificent stories to tell.  I c